A certificate is a credential that certifies ownership of a public key by a named subject. A trusted certificate authority issues certificates so others can rely on assertions made with the corresponding private key. section 4.3.3
In an Istio service mesh, certificates support:
- Workload identity, by securely provisioning certificates to every workload. section 4.3.3
- Trust delegation, through a root certificate, a subordinate delegate CA, or an administrator-specified CA. section 4.3.3
- Zero-trust security, alongside peer authentication and authorization against unknown service communication and network attacks. section 4.3.3
Istio CA configurations
By default, Istio generates a self-signed root certificate and key, then uses them to sign certificates for microservices. Enterprise deployments commonly provide an existing root certificate or delegated CA signing certificate and key. section 4.3.3














